


I Hear The Drums (The Battle Cries)

by Nationwide



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Episode: s01e13 The Parting of the Ways, F/M, Hints Of The Doctor/Rose, Hints of Nine/Rose, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Human Rose Tyler, Rose Becomes Not Human, Season Finale, mild romance, season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 14:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18757975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nationwide/pseuds/Nationwide
Summary: Rose Tyler absorbs the heart of the Tardis, and becomes something not completely human.





	I Hear The Drums (The Battle Cries)

_ Bad Wolf.  _

_ Bad Wolf.  _

_ Bad Wolf.  _

Over and over and over again. Whispering like an echo of a breath, blown away into the wind and the quiet. Rose Tyler is bathed in gold. 

Someone is calling her name. 

Their words are laced with desperation and - and - something else, but the words barely reach her ears. It fades into nothing but another sound filling the silence. 

The longing deep in her chest brings the voice back. Her Doctor. 

_ “I looked into the Tardis. And the Tardis looked into me.” _

She has. Everything, all of time, running through her head. 

She can see it all. Everything in their universe. Blink - and she’d miss something. It burns and screams inside her skin like hellfire, ripping through her skull and spinning around inside, scarring everything it touches. 

It is beautiful. It is horrifying. 

Something whispers in the back of her mind,  _ this will change you. You will never be the same.  _

The very molecules of her existence are changing, evolving, growing. She is becoming something else, something not entirely human. 

_ “You looked into the Time Vortex. Rose, no one’s meant to see that.” _

His words were small, but they  _ mattered. _

They barely resonate in her ears, but she can see them tumbling from his lips, calling out to her. He sounds so far away, but he is standing right there, so close. 

Close enough to touch. But when she reaches out, she can’t find him.

She wants him to understand, and he can’t. Her eyes gloss over and a single tear slides down her cheek and over her lip, and she tries to make him understand what she’s done. 

_ “I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words; I scatter them in time and space. A message, to lead myself here.” _

The words above their heads tumble away, BAD WOLF, falling apart letter by letter until nothing is left but empty air. 

Colors and shades of gold spiral and swirl through her irises, and a wave of content washes over her, calming the throb in her head and settling her shaky movements. Blurry eyed vision became clearer until she can perfectly see the man standing in front of her, and the enemy line, not 20 feet behind him. 

Behind her Doctor. She can see the worry, the fear, etched into the dark hue under his eyes and into the lines and contours of his face.

_ "Rose, you've got to stop this! You've got to stop this now! You've got the entire vortex running through your head. You're gonna burn." _

Her head screams to her, to him.  _ No!  _

But even she can not hear her voice when it is echoing off nothing, never even leaving her lips. She can not process the thought, not understand the meaning of his words, only hearing, but unable to be listening.

_ "I want you safe. My Doctor. Protected from the false god." _

_ "You cannot hurt me. I am immortal." _

Fury rippled through her every nerve, erupting within her like a chain reaction. Her stomach tumbled over and over in circles in her stomach. Her anger was indescribable, surging like wildfire through every atom of her existence, searing a path of chaos, leaving dead silence in her wake. 

And all that is left is empty cold and bottomless dark, ugly shades of black and grey and nothing. And she bares her gaze into his, the False God's, and speaks.

_ "You are tiny." _

The emotion tears into her apeach, lacing every word that falls from her lips with the power to pull apart time itself, to tear a gap in reality, to rip apart each and every cell of the emperor’s being, to shatter him into dust, ever so insignificant. 

And she does just so, with a flick on her wrist, rising from her waist.

_ “I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence. And I divide them. Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies. The Time War ends." _

Around her, the world falls apart, dissolving into lonely cells and broken atoms, individual pieces that together can create an enemy, but separate, are nothing but harmless dust, floating through the air.

_ "Rose, you've done it, now stop. Just let go."  _

His voice is like honey, smeared across her veins and dancing through her mind, asking of her more than she had to give. It was unfeasible that she could ever give away this power, this unlimited control to protect the man before her, to keep him safe from anything the world might toss in his direction. Nobody has to die and not a soul must be hurt. And she could make it happen.

_ "How can I let go of this? I bring life." _

And so she does. She could feel the gasp of air enter his lungs as he breathes once more as if they were her own, and the pull of humanity fleeting from his mind, the beginning of his immortal life. And she too felt immortal, forever unchanging by the grip of time, allotted and unlimited time, unraveling days, never ending, never stopping, never faltering.

_ "But this is wrong! You can't control life and death!" _

_ "But I can." _

It burns a sensation in the pit of her stomach, a gut wrenching yank deep in her chest, a pull to right every wrong, and fix every mistake, protect those she loves from the grips of fault. Her breathing turns ragged, a soft hitch of breath mid-sentence, a stumble over words and thoughts and everything important.

_ "The sun and the moon, the day and night. But why do they hurt?"  _

She doesn’t comprehend, can’t begin to understand the foreign power running raw through her human veins, deadly to the blood she carries, pumping steady within pale skin, unwelcoming to the new thoughts in her head and all of time darting through her memories.

It is an indescribable pain, a small stab against her side or a throb in her skull, magnified throughout her entire body, ricocheting off every organ and every bone, echoing deep inside her, tearing like raging fire through each and every bit of her entirely, a ripple effect of shooting pains and screaming pangs, of a throbbing head and a burning soul.

_ "The power's gonna kill you, and it's my fault!" _

The voice was different this time, not pleading and no longer desperate, instead the tone of someone grieving a loved one lost. It pains her ever the more, reaching out to her Doctor, desiring only to end his pain, to bring closure to the sadness lacing his tone and keep him shielded from the detriments of the outside world, and keep him safely away from every punch and kick the universe had to offer.

_ "I can see everything. All that is, all that was, all that ever could be." _

Her words are spoken as a means of comfort, as if to tell him it was okay, she doesn’t mind, that the wonders racing through her head are enough, he can not blame himself; she will be alright. But instead he only looks up, his gaze meant to meet her own, but she can’t, her eyes unseeing the truth of reality as gold laces through them hazily, tainting her with the traps of foreign concepts and thoughts unhuman. Her eyes can not rise to meet his.

_ "That's what I see. All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?"  _

She can barely jerk her head forwards in a stiff nod, the words falling from her pale lips choked, dripping with breathless pain and desperation for relief.

_ "My head-" _

_ "Come here." _

_ "-Is killing me." _

_ "I think you need a doctor." _

Her lips fumble to meet his. Behind her tightly shut eyelids flash rapid white lights, golden rays spinning from out of hers, and into his eyes. Dizziness fills her eyes and head, her knees giving to gravity and sinking towards the floor. Reality is gone away, pulling her into a world of fantasy and dream, unconsciousness abandoning her in a second to quick too count. 

And her Doctor is safe.


End file.
